Moving Day -1 Part 2

2pm - Sitting here in an empty house with just a laptop, a cable connection and a TV, even the whole contents of my wardrobe are now in the back of a removal van which is parked up in a secure compound waiting for the 500 yard trip to the new house tomorrow, I'll have to wear these clothes in the morning, thats these clothes that are covered in mud from the pond, I also have to go to The Fox tonight to eat in these pond muddy clothes.

Three young whippet thin lads turned up with a huge truck this morning and by lunchtime, and before we could blink, all of our possesions were on it, the best £700 I've spent on this house move.

The last 12 inches of water in the pond were removed quite quickly and I started fishing, there are nine Golden Orfe in the pond or atleast there were, there are nine golden orfe in two buckets now wondering what the hell is happening, one of them is a huge bugger, at least twelve inches long, hope he survives the relocation for the new pond that I'm planning will display him to his best advantage being as its to be a Koi style pond with no planting and nothing for them to hide behind, a three foot high oblong, walled enclosure above ground with bench seating around the edge and fairy lights just to naff off the new neighbours.

I had a Peter Glaze moment when fishing out the last Orfe, the submersible pump is not a pond pump, its a heavy duty industrial one and can lift quite a few feet of water, I had it stood near to me on the edge of the pond and decided to move it out deeper into the centre.

Its not a good idea to lift pumps by the outgoing pipe, especially if you are bending over it at the time, away came the pipe and up whooshed gallons of filthy muddy bottom of pond sludge - right in my face.

UK residents of a certain age will remember Peter Glaze on "Crackerjack" who without fail always got a hosepipe of water in the face in every episode and rather than simply step out of the way he would stand there taking the full force, gasping and spluttering until someone turned it off - that was me and my Peter Glaze moment this morning.

I've washed all of the mud out of my face now and picked most of the frogspawn out of what I jokingly call my hair, but my sweatshirt and jeans still bear the mud.

I hope they serve me in The Fox, I'm hungry and theres no food in the house.